Alcatraz - Vampire State Building (Reissue) (1972/2002)

A quite obscure band coming from Hamburg in the early 70s and composed of five members: RUEDIGER BERGHAHN (Vocals), KLAUS HOLST (guitar), KLAUS NAGURSKI (Flute and Sax), Ronald Wilson (Bass) and JAN RIECK (Drums and Percussion). They were used to play in small places and started with covers of TRN YEARS AFTER, VANILLA FUDGE and also URIAH HEEP and BLACK SABBATH, but later they started been heavily influenced by more jazz oriented bands, in particular SOFT MACHINE. What results is a mixture of heavy rock, Canterbury with long improvisations as typical of Krautrock. Their debut album is the most well known. They stopped for long time after that but came back in the late 70s with a number of new and more challenging releases.